Active Education

One thing that has been on my mind this week is cross disciplinary education. For example, I think it would be interesting to do a crossover of English (paragraph writing) and physical education. I find that students are often restless in the classroom and while there is of course a host of reasons, one reason is that students are sitting in most if not all of their classrooms (besides physical education).

It could be beneficial to students, not only to engage their minds, but also engage or activate their bodies. I feel somehow, that activities that captivate the mind and body may increase concentration levels and reduce a lot of the mindless chatter and off topic distractions.

This week in one of my volunteer classrooms, students had to write "How To" paragraphs (which I thought was really genius by the way) where they had to practice writing an expository paragraph where they teach their reader, step by step, how to perform a certain task. Students had very creative ideas such as teaching their readers how to take care of pets (turtles, rats), how to avoid fighting with siblings, iPhone use, making eggs, etc.

While certain students had trouble coming up with both topics and ideas, I found that it was challenging having students stay on task for any given amount of time.

Sometimes when I write, or brainstorm ideas, I like to get up and move around, even write ideas on a paper that I have taped to the wall. I think therefore it could be a good idea to combine certain writing activities in English classrooms with actual active games where students have to move around and quite possibly work in teams. I have been brainstorming some ideas that could possibly work. Here are a few:

Human paragraph
Divide students into groups of 5-6 and each person will represent a sentence in a paragraph. One person is the introductory sentence, 3-4 people are the supporting detail sentences, and 1 person is the concluding sentence. Students can brainstorm and work in their groups to come up with their sentences. This could take a relay race type of structure where two teams are paired against each other. Each person is given 2 minutes to write their sentence on the board and then they have to pass the chalk/dry erase marker to the next person in line. The point of this activity is to work in a team and have students get better of thinking up ideas quickly. Teacher goes over each paragraph and shares with the class. Or can have the students read their paragraph to the class.

Stations
Class can be divided into stations based on paragraph structure. For example, there would be one station for introductory sentences, another station for supporting detail 1, 2, 3, another for concluding sentence. This may work because it puts demarcations and borders surrounding each tasks and breaks things down nicely. I think that element of quickness helps students to stay on task more easily.

Paragraph Hamburgers
This is based off of the paragraph writing model that is in the structure of a hamburger. Each time a student finishes a sentence, they have to go and stick it onto their burger. They write their introductory sentence, and stick it onto their burger. They write their first supporting detail and go and stick it onto their burger. They do this until they have finished making up their burger completely. This activity can be done in partners or groups.

This is just a start but I think combining writing and active activities could be a good way to get creative juices going.

Distracted Students

One of the things that I have come across in the classrooms I am volunteering in are distracted students. Whether it be cell phones, peers, or simply the inability to concentrate on the task at hand, it is very easy to notice many students who are not able to focus or work on the current lesson.

I have tried to understand or brainstorm the reasons behind this behavior. Is it that there is a growing wave of apathy in general among youth these days? Is the material or method of learning not stimulating enough? Are students lost because they question the relevancy of the material to their own current lives? As educators are we failing in drawing connections from the material to the student's life so that they understand the significance of learning about these topics? Is technology (cell phones - social media, youtube etc,) altering students' attention spans? Are students tempted to look at their cell phones in the classroom? The answers may be found within all of these questions, not to mention there are many factors surrounding the student themselves - their personality, home life, routines, physiology (ADHD, Anxiety, learning disabilities), etc.

Here are a few suggestions I pose from my own ruminations, which I have also noticed on websites on the same topic.  


Instructional 

Directly connect the lesson to the students' lives

Instructional material appears dry to students. While the material is infact interesting and does directly impact their lives, perhaps students have difficulty making the connection on how the topic directly influences their lives and perhaps as educators we need to teach them this how.  As educators, I believe it is our role to create those bridges and connections for students. For example, I was reading with a student and the main character in the novel meets a student in his class who is deaf. I think it is important to draw connections for the student by example, asking the student if they have ever interacted with a person who is different from they are and perhaps what the benefit of such encounters would be. Another example is studying with a student on the Industrial Revolution and how it changed the nature of agriculture and food production. I was able to ask a student if he ever thought about where his food came from. I feel that this is just the beginning but perhaps rooting or grounding the lesson within the personal lives of the students and drawing constant connections helps to keep them engaged. I also enjoy activities that connect students not only to themselves, but to their peers, teacher and the outside world.

Keep it simple

Perhaps concepts or readings are beyond student learning level in the sense that students do not understand what they are reading/learning and thus "check out." I can see this a lot in ESL classrooms, where students do not completely understand what they are reading and perhaps have not developed the capacity at this point of their lives to persevere through the material. I think in this case, maybe it is best to focus on one or two ideas or concepts and only stick to teaching those.

• Break up lessons so that students are not working on one thing for long periods of time - students become restless 
• Hands on learning involving movement, getting out of ones desk
• Active participation - students are not to be passive in the class but may be called at any time to answer a question or participate in an activity

I visited a few websites and they also discuss some good ideas for keeping students focused

Organizational

• Planning - creating a plan for what the class/students are to be working on for that session and maybe have charts or checklists and even exit slips to monitor their work...."by the end of the next 20 minutes, I would like to see that you have completed 3 sentences..."
• Seating - best to have students sit with people they do not know, but still to encourage an atmosphere of community. Sitting with friends, I have found in a lot of classes increases the noise level and lowers concentration levels
• Goal setting - have students, especially distracted ones, create goals for their learning and attentiveness. Have them be honest about their strengths and weaknesses and create goals to improve their weaknesses especially as it concerns being distracted.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/15-strategies-managing-attention-problems

https://www.learningliftoff.com/study-finds-school-distractions-affect-student-learning/

https://www.impactteachers.com/easily-distracted-adhd-students/teacher-tips